We were asked to produce a Christmas Facebook game for Shire Hotels. Building on the previous years success, we decided to build a bigger and more importantly a far more addictive game. The end result was Santa Dash.

The game play is extremely simple, involving a single mouse click to make Santa go higher and release to go lower, all to avoid the roof tops and those pesky planes. The addictive game play stems from the fact that Santa Dash doesn’t have an actual end, but becomes progressively harder as the user progresses. This was key to encouraging users to come back and play again.

Social media is still a vast subject area and a powerful tool when used right. For Santa Dash, the latest functionality provided by Facebook was incorporated into the design just days after it launched. Facebook was used to provide:

• Accountability for the leaderboard: Anonymous leaderboards don’t tend to end well, so user’s were asked to connect with the Facebook game in order to post their scores. This setup was great for both the user and the game, as each user only need to press a couple of buttons to connect, while the game benefited by having real people and not abusive comments as entries in the leaderboard.
• Achievements: New to Facebook. User’s were awarded achievements based upon scoring, in game events and by sharing the game with others. This is great for marketing as each achievement appears within the user’s feed enabling them to show off to all of their friends. The share achievement was unlocked after user’s recommended Santa Dash to their Facebook friends.
• Viral Marketing: Achievements and feeds. By providing an achievement for actively promoting Santa Dash, user’s started sharing with one another. A recommendation from a friend is far more effective than just another advert.
• Metrics: Another advantage of this setup is the insights Facebook can offer. This is simililar to Google Analytics but provides in depth analysis of the user’s connected with the app.

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